NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, September 24, 1993
7
South Africa sees changes
Blacks to be given role in government
The Associated Press
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Parliament voted yesterday to allow Blacks a role in governing South Africa for the first time, and angry white right-wing lawmakers warned that the decision could lead to civil war.
"This makes permanent peace impossible," said Ferdi Hartzenberg, leader of the white Conservative Party, who led his followers in walking out of Parliament after the vote. "We have lost a golden opportunity for peace."
The vote creates a Transitional Executive Council, comprised of representatives from the 26 Black and white parties that have participated in the talks on ending apartheid.
The body, which one official said may function as early as next month, will be a watchdog of the government
with some veto powers. It will help oversee the holding of the country's first multiracial election April 27.
The African National Congress, the country's largest Black group, hailed the vote as "a major victory for the forces of peace and democracy."
"For the first time in the history of our country, the racist Parliament has approved a bill which is responsible to the will and aspirations of the majority," the ANC said in a statement.
By giving Blacks a role in government, the bill set the stage for ANC leader Nelson Mandela to endorse the lifting of remaining international economic sanctions against South Africa.
The move was expected today during Mandela's visit to the United Nations in New York.
In Washington, President Clinton applauded the "historic step" and promised to provide voter education and training "to create a level playing field" for all the parties in the upcoming campaign.
The dominant white chamber of
Parliament, led by President F.W. de Klerk's National Party, voted 107-36 to create a power-sharing council agreed upon this month at talks with the ANC and other groups.
But several parties, including the pro-apartheid Conservative Party and the Black Inkatha Freedom Party, the ANC's rival, said they would boycott the council. The Black militant Pan Africanist Congress also said it would boycott the council because it would not have enough power to control security forces.
The council can start functioning as soon as next month, Constitutional Development Minister Roelf Meyer said.
While it will not have absolute power, the panel will have veto power over some decisions — most importantly those involving increased use of the security forces to quell political unrest in Black townships.
It also will help oversee foreign, economic and national security policy and the April elections.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Ordinary citizens joined striking transport workers in throwing up street barricades yesterday as a wave of anger over tax increases and economic woes swent Nicaragua's capital.
At least two people have been killed since the indefinite strike began Monday when 30,000 bus, truck and taxi drivers went off their jobs across the country to protest a new vehicle tax.
The Associated Press
Yesterday, thousands of ordinary citizens began streaming to barricades of flagstones and flaming tires all over the city to back demands that the tax be canceled and gasoline prices cut.
Taxes cause riots in Nicaragua
"The people are joining in this protest because of the terrible shape of the economy. We don't have jobs, and we just can't stand this anymore," said Victor Lopez, 18, an unemployed construction worker.
Estimates of unemployment run as high as 60 percent, three years after the end of the eight-year war between U.S.-backed Contra rebels and the former leftist Sandinista rulers.
Some people expressed fears of a civil uprising, but there was no sign that the government of President Violeta Chamorro was in danger of falling.
Barricades blocked most major roads and highways throughout the capital and the country. Bus service,
There was no progress reported from a set of marathon negotiations at the National Assembly between strikers of the National Transport Commission and members of Chamroro's Cabinet.
Nicaragua's principal form of transportation, stopped. Schools, shops, businesses and most government offices were closed.
Hundreds stood about the barricade of flagstones on the Pan-American Highway where a policeman and a bystander were shot dead Tuesday during a clash between strikers and police.
The stench of burning tires hung in the air, and strikers brandished daggers and machetes.
At one point, barricade leaders checking cars that cross a narrow gap in the blockade pounced on a battered orange auto, smashing in the door and beating the driver until blood ran down his face.
"I'm just trying to go see my family," the motorist pleaded to the 20 men mobbing his car. Heavily armed troops of the Sandista-led army later passed through to cheers.
The strike by thousands of taxi, truck and bus drivers began as a protest against a new vehicle tax averaging about $430 a year per vehicle, which Chamorro said was necessary to finance rebuilding the country.
The government said Wednesday the tax would be suspended pending further study.
Health-care plan met with approval, questions
The Associated Press
LYNNWOOD, Wash. — Rick Perkins didn't need President Clinton to tell him America's health care system is broken. He suffered severe colitis for 10 years, unable to afford surgery because his employers offered no health benefits.
Perkins, 33, nodded enthusiastically Wednesday night as he listened to the president pitching his health-care reform.
"Clinton has a lot of chutzpah to come up with something that's so misunderstood and unpopular," Perkins said. "I have a lot of respect for him for that, I'll be watching for what the details are."
He's not alone. Interviews with a sampling of Americans who have the most to win or lose from Clinton's plan — doctors, retirees, young professionals, the long-term disabled — showed broad support but also a hunger for more information, especially about what reform will cost.
"I'm very supportive of a national health
care plan, but it also sounds like a very costly program," said Hal Pos, 34, a lawyer in Salt Lake City.
Pos is among those for whom health-insurance premiums would probably rise under Clinton's plan — healthy, young professionals who already have insurance and would be pooled with older, less healthy people.
In the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood, Perkins said he could have used Clinton's plan years ago. He was diagnosed in 1981 with colitis, a chronic intestinal disorder, but put off surgery because he had no health insurance.
"Sometimes the pain was excruciating, sometimes it was just annoying, but it was constant," he said.
He had his surgery in 1991 but today is again without health insurance, working as a self-employed computer publisher.
Perkins hopes Clinton's plan will spare others his years of pain and uncertainty. But he said: "It could take him his entire time as president to get this through, and even then he might not make it. There is
guaranteed to be something to upset everybody."
In a hotel at the edge of New Orleans' French Quarter, doctors in tuxedos watched Clinton's speech as they waited for their dinner-dance at a convention of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.
They applauded when Clinton criticized malpractice lawsuits and the high cost of paperwork. But they expect battles ahead.
"Of course, we're going to argue to have all reconstructive surgery included," said Dr. Dennis J. Lynch of Temple, Texas, the organization's assistant secretary.
"We can't continue on the way things are now," Langlitz said. "This road just leads to ruin."
In the AIDS ward of San Francisco Hospital, Dwight Langlitz, 32, watched from his bed and applauded the president, his IV line flapping with each clap. He doubts he will live to see any changes but said they are needed nonetheless.
Health-plan winners
President Clinton's proposed broad health-care changes could affect every American and many aspects of the medical system. Here are some groups who will gain under the plan.
The uninsured
All Americans would have health-care coverage, regardless of health, age or employment status. Taxpayer subsidies would assist the poor.
Individuals in Inner cities
and rural areas
Increased incentives would be offered to physicians who practice in inner cities and rural areas where adequate medical care is lacking.
Self-employed
Many self-employed people now go without insurance. They would be guaranteed coverage, and 100 percent of the cost would be tax deductible.
Health-plan losers
If the president is able to achieve his health-care goals, many of the proposed changes will hurt some businesses and individuals.
Small business
About 38 percent of small businesses do not offer health coverage to their employees. They would see their costs go up, or they would have to offset the losses with layoffs, pay reductions or hiring freezes.
Small and medium-sized
SOURCES: White House, Chicago Tribune
insurance companies Many small insurers may not be able to compete with large insurers that can offer HMO-style coverage.
Employees with generous
health-care benefits Employer-paid plans that exceed federal basic benefits could be taxed as income.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
Coast Guard halts Haitians fleeing military brutality
Knight-Riddor Tribune
A 65-foot, "grossly overloaded," the freighter was intercepted Tuesday 18 miles north of Capu Mole in northwest Haiti, a Coast Guard statement said. The refugees were turned over Wednesday to the Haitian chapter of the International Red Cross in Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. Coast Guard said yesterday that it intercepted 297 Haitian refugees off Haiti's coast and returned them to their country, which has been rocked this month by army-sponsored killings.
THE NEWS in brief
Since a 1991 military coup that overthrew Haiti's first freely elected government, the Coast Guard has intercepted more than 40,000 Haitians trying to reach the United States. Refugees say they are fleeing army terror. Washington claims that they are economic migrants and has shipped most of them back.
The army and police have killed hundreds of Aristide supporters since the coup.
Human rights advocate Jean-Claude Bajuex said that Haitians were becoming increasingly discouraged as they wait for the arrival of nearly 1,300 U.N. troops and the resignation of the city's repressive police chief. Those measures, along with the Oct. 30 return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, are part of a U.N.-brokered plan for the restoration of democracy.
WASHINGTON 'Wireless' industry begins
Federal regulators opened the floodgates yesterday for a surge in wireless communications that the industry says could make cellular phones so inexpensive that half the country will carry them by the year 2000.
In a 2-1 decision, the Federal Communications Commission carved up 160 megahertz of airwaves for companies to create a new, multibillion-dollar industry based on a fresh line of wireless devices.
This includes highly sophisticated pocket phones, palm-size computers and laptops that receive video pictures.
"This will profoundly change the way people communicate," said FCC chairman James Quello.
It was the most heavily lobbied ruling in the history of the FCC, involving virtually every company with an interest in communications, including cable TV, long-distance and regional telephone companies, cellular phone services and computer companies.
As a result of the ruling, everyone may some-day carry around a small, personal phone at all times with a number that's individually assigned, just like Social Security numbers.
"We made an earnest effort to balance all the conflicting interests," said Guello.
"By the end of the decade, half the people on the streets in Washington will be carrying a phone," said John Roth, president of wireless services for Northern Telecom.
GENEVA
Saudis say no to oil reduction
Staking out its position ahead of a key OPEC meeting, Saudi Arabia said yesterday that it would not reduce its oil production in the coming months to help lift sagging prices.
Hisham Nazer, the kingdom's influential oil minister, made his remarks upon arrival in Geneva for tomorrow's meeting of the 12-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The average price of an OPEC marker — an indicator of crude oil price trend — stood at $14.78 a barrel last week, well below the group's $21 target.
The producers, under pressure to halt the slide in oil prices, will be plotting production strategy for the final three months of the year.
Crude prices have tumbled to their lowest level in three years — since shortly before Iraq invaded Kuwait, a crisis that briefly sent prices above $30 a 42-gallon barrel.
Nazer, whose country supplies about a third of OPEC's oil, said Saudi Arabia would not cut output below its current level of 8 million barrels a day. Overall, the nations are supplying about a million barrels a day above their July-September ceiling of 23.6 million barrels a day
The price plunge has been blamed partly on excess production by Iran, Kuwait and several other OPEC members.
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
Parliament OKs peace treaty
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared he won "freedom of action" to pursue Mideast peace after parliament ratified the historic Israel-PLO accord yesterday.
Rabin said the 61-50 vote allowed the government to implement the agreement on Palestinian self-rule in the occupied lands and continue attempts to reach peace with Israel's Arab neighbors.
The margin was less substantial than Rabin had hoped for, but it put a convincing end to calls for early elections or a national referendum that would have slowed down the peace momentum.
It also diminished fears that Israel would be torn by violence and political anarchy after recognizing the PLO, its bitter enemy.
"Now we shall build a new Middle East," Foreign Minister Shimson Peres said after the vote.
eign Minister Shimon Peres said after the vote. Still, hard-line opponents to the accord said that the government's mandate was slim and that they would try to force changes in the accord.
PLO spokesman Yasser Abed-Rabbo praised the result, telling Israel army radio from Tunis that it was a "positive step" and that support for the treaty was larger in the street than in parliament.
Rabin had staked the credibility of the peace initiative as well as the future of his government on winning the vote, saying it would constitute a formal vote of confidence.
PHOENIX
Passenger lands airplane
A passenger with virtually no flying experience crash-landed a light plane at a dark airport yesterday morning after the pilot died at the controls.
"Definitely an 'E' ticket ride," said Matthew Kornblum, who walked away from the single-engine Cessna 182 after his feat in Flagstaff, Ariz. "It's just something you have to do when you're in a do-or-die situation."
The pilot, Billy D. Graham, 59, was pronounced dead at Flagstaff Medical Center. An autopsy was ordered to determine the cause of death, but Kornblum said he believed Graham had a heart attack.
The two were returning to Flagstaff in the dark from a business trip in the Navajo Reservation community of Kayenta, Ariz., about 130 miles northeast of Flagstaff, when Graham said he wasn't feeling well.
About 10 minutes later, Graham convulsed and passed out. Kornblum said.
Kornbium, from Charlotte, N.C., said he has never had a flying lesson but Graham and other pilots had allowed him to take controls of planes several times, though never at night.
"I've had maybe 10 hours at the stick," Kornbom said. "I'm really glad I paid attention."
num said. "I'm really glad I've paid attention." Kornblium, an electrical engineer, said he was too high on his first attempt at landing. The second time, he bounced the plane three times, collapsing the nose landing gear before the skid skipped to a halt.
Compiled from The Associated Press.
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